Though many prophets competed for their attention as well, the ideal of Allah finally congealed
in the form of the Qur’an, said to be dictated by the angel Gabriel to Muhammad, a middle-aged
merchant who Muslims widely believe could neither read nor write. The Qur’an’s stories are
largely borrowed from the Hebrew Bible, yet similar to the early Gospels of the New Testament,
it eschews immoral behavior, establishes a Day of Judgment, and for the faithful, promises
resurrection in paradise. Throughout, it glorifies the believers who submit to its authority, agree
to call themselves Muslims, and accept Muhammad as the last and greatest messenger of
Allah.
Before long, Qur’anic teachings had penetrated beyond the borders of the Arab world. Like
Christians and Hebrews who believed in the historical accuracy of their religious scriptures,
many Muslims claimed the Qur’an contained the legitimate words of God. Convinced that
Muhammad’s illiteracy prevented him from prior knowledge of such subjects as God, Adam,
Abraham, and Jesus, believers alluded to it as a sign of his purity of mind.
Spiritual investigators engaged in a sincere colloquium would challenge these assertions as
well. They might point out that though Muhammad may not have read the stories in the Hebrew
Bible, he certainly would have heard them since he was well traveled and they had long since
made their way across the Near East. Inquirers might then interpret his modified renderings of
them as symptomatic of either his illiteracy or the cultural yen for improvisation rather than as
proof that he heard them from an angel of God. It could even be argued that Muhammad’s
recorded revelations spread around the world not because they were miraculous but nearly the
opposite—because their simplicity and unifying power quickly translated into political and
economic advances for the Qur’an’s scattered adherents.
Though most stories in the Qur’an adhere closely to the prophetic tradition of the Hebrews,
Muhammad incorporated material depicting himself as other than a strictly God-inspired
messenger. For example, at first he declared that his message was for his kin; then he felt
commanded to share it with people outside his family; afterward he considered it his duty to
preach in Makkah; and only later, fueled by people’s increased receptivity to this angelically
delivered faith, did he claim to be God’s messenger to the world (6:92, 8:158).3 In addition,
soon after the Jews of Madinah rejected Muhammad as a messenger of God, his angry
response to them showed up in Qur’anic references advising dissociation from Jews. Moreover,
while early scriptural material called for fasting during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, he later
reversed this instruction and instituted the month of Ramadan as the official Muslim fast (2:185).
And whereas Muslims were initially instructed to face Jerusalem while praying, he changed the
direction of prayer to Makkah (2:144, 149). These and other impromptu injunctions make it clear
that the Qur’an, while rendered in the language of Allah’s eternal commandments, contains
guidance pertaining to the shifting circumstances surrounding Muhammad and his followers.
Among early Muslims, Christians, and Hebrews alike, the gods made in their image sooner or
later reflected back social and political messages that today erroneously reverberate through all
three religions as timelessly inspired truths. An example of this phenomenon is the belief in
resurrection, a doctrine that first appeared in Hebrew thought during the Maccabean Revolt in
the second century BCE. To entice men to fight in the revolt, according to the book of Daniel,
the Hebrews were encouraged to martyr themselves for God’s word and chosen people, in
exchange for resurrection to eternal life—seeding a belief still globally embraced by
monotheists. The idea that martyrs are resurrected was later applied to the stories of Jesus’s
death, most likely because messianic Jews at the time, treating him as a martyr, carried a nearly
two-hundred-year-old expectation that he, like the Maccabean warriors they glorified in the past,
would be resurrected and ascend to God. The earliest biblical mention of his resurrection,
appearing in Mark 16:6, sets forth a model of Jesus as the first Christian martyr to be
resurrected; however, among early Christians the question of whether to accept Jesus’s
resurrection literally or symbolically was a fiercely debated political issue. Decades later, Church
officials and theologians quashed the opposition, affirmed that Christ was physically
resurrected, and established Church hierarchy as the only true conduit to God.
Six hundred years after the birth of the Jesus mythology and Christian eschatology, the Qur’an
reiterated the “official” Judeo-Christian doctrine of resurrection, simultaneously making paradise
richly sensual and mistakenly linking the promise of eternal life all the way back to Abraham and
the patriarchs (2:260). Qur’anic references to the Day of Resurrection (3:161), combined with
Muhammad’s counsel, such as “What though ye be slain or die, when unto Allah ye are
gathered?” (3:158), inspired a Muslim belief in resurrection in paradise after dying in warlike
service to God’s word and people. Muslims interpreting these ideas literally became willing, as
did their Christian and Hebrew forerunners, to martyr themselves for their God and their people
in return for resurrection to eternal life. Fundamentalist Muslims today continue the tradition,
expecting suicide bombings to propel them to paradise. Regrettably, they believe that by acting
on this doctrine they are following in the footsteps of Abraham, when in fact they are complying
with a theological distortion that Muhammad unwittingly borrowed from later Hebrews
hard-pressed in military campaigns. So it appears that not only are gods made in the image of
men but, in scriptural passages pitting man against man, the word of God articulates the
sentiments of politically motivated men.
Once aware of the misconceptions and polarizing effects of religion’s numerous god figures,
spiritual investigators might wonder how modern-day humanity can find a more embraceable
and inclusive God—a universal God that can help us foster expansiveness within ourselves as
vehicles for world peace. For starters, we can recognize that the Hebrew Bible, the New
Testament, and the Qur’an all project local human ideals and ideas onto their images of God;
their authors hoped those ideas would coalesce in the minds of believers into personal forms of
God that would fulfill social and traditional needs. Then we might strip away the layers of
historical and codified swathing in which they wrapped their mythic god images, watch the
images expand back into a universal substance worthier of our veneration, and make them our
own.
Historical wrappings include all the events, dictates, and interpretations used to enhance
acceptance of organized religion during its centuries of incubation, whether or not they can be
evidentially substantiated. Actually, archaeological and textual studies have categorically refuted
many of the events portrayed in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, or the hadith, the
records of Muhammad’s life, though they do confirm that certain inspirational people and
turbulent times existed. But indications that historical personages inspiring the religious
sentiments dramatically prophesied by Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad all existed does not
imply that the lives depicted in the corresponding texts are historical or that the theological
assertions they convey are necessarily true. At best, we can conclude that real people and
places were used in otherwise mythological stories, most likely to give them a convincing
context and surround them with compelling references.
One example of a biblical event functioning in this way is the Exodus from Egypt described in
the Hebrew Bible. There exists little evidence that the Hebrews fled by way of ten plagues and a
parting of the Reed Sea, or even that they were slaves in Egypt. The entire story of the Exodus
appears, from historical and archaeological studies, to be a myth designed to give a group of
people a sense of importance, a feeling of solidarity, and a unique relationship to their ideal of
God. Considering the countless centuries subsequently marked by observance of the Passover
Seder, the myth clearly fulfilled its purposes.
Further, archaeological finds do not substantiate stories of the conquering of Canaan under
Joshua’s leadership or of King David’s dispersal of the Philistines. These tales that gave the
early Hebrews a sense of pride and accomplishment are now considered historical facts in the
minds of millions of people. Because of Joshua and David’s purported victories, in combination
with the Exodus account, Jews today cling to the pride of being a people who survived four
hundred years of slavery; who were freed by God, favoring them above all other beings in the
universe; and who conquered a strip of land given to them by their God.
In fact, the ancient Hebrews, as well as the early Christians and Muslims, saw little point in
unbiasedly recording events. To them, writing history meant sanctifying it, giving events cosmic
significance by directing human attention to thoughts of God, glory, and good things for
believers. Indeed, self-mystifying beliefs inspired by myths of the Hebrew Bible succeeded in
enkindling the longevity of the Jewish identity by giving Jews determination, a sense of dignity, a
system of values, and when fueling opposition in the form of anti-Semitism, distance from
others.
The problem is that in the attempt to sanctify history, organized religions ended up repeatedly
sanctifying one tribal group of people at the expense of others, much to humanity’s detriment.
For example, though modern archaeological findings reveal that Canaanites of the time were
culturally more advanced than the Hebrews, the Hebrew Bible depicts the opposite.
Consequently, many of the European colonists arriving in America, influenced by the Hebrew
Bible’s mythic account of the chosen people’s God-inspired triumph over the Canaanites, saw
themselves as new Israelites whose destiny was to remove the “savage Indians,” or new
Canaanites, and take their promised land of the Americas. Similarly, evangelical Christians
today, convinced by the New Testament that they have been chosen to “save” people of other
faiths, send missionaries around the world to uproot entire indigenous populations of their
traditions, all the while expanding the domain of Church influence. Any religious attempt to
selectively glorify its followers for economic or territorial advantage imparts an ethnocentrism
capable of corrupting their perceptions and treatment of others for centuries to come.
Religious attempts to sanctify history also end up erroneously glorifying one God image at the
expense of others. For instance, in the 1960s Shrila Prabhupada, the Hindu fundamentalist
founder of ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness), began teaching
Westerners to worship Krishna by chanting the Hindu God’s name, when the story of Krishna
champions the freedom to focus the mind on any form representing the impersonal substance of
infinite awareness. Contrary to the very teachings dramatically conveyed by Krishna in the
Mahabharata, Prabhupada considered him to be the supreme representative of God, having
apparently taken his words too literally in the Bhagavad Gita, a yogic treatise dating back to
about the fifth century BCE, where Krishna speaks on behalf of the infinite self. Rather than
interpreting these words transpersonally, it seems Prabhupada mistook them for personal
messages from the mythic King Krishna.
Christians who interpret Christ’s words “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6) as
personal statements make the same error of superiority. Whether or not Jesus taught within the
Hebrew tradition, had twelve disciples, uttered such statements, or was even born,
pseudohistorical claims glorifying such words and complimentary miraculous deeds have less to
do with utilizing an image, such as that of Jesus Christ, as a focal point of worship and more to
do with sanctifying one’s own religious tradition at the expense of everyone else. Over the last
two thousand years, this image has inspired such saintly individuals as Francis, Teresa of Avila,
and Teresa Neumann to penetrate the divisive sheaths surrounding it and focus their hearts and
minds on the expansive substance they referred to as the God within.
So it is that in unwrapping theology’s historical assertions about God, we are left with what
might be purer images—mythic images that have invigorated centuries of worship among
exceptional lovers of God and humanity by providing the heart with an inspiring object of
concentration. For atheists, agnostics, and nontheists alike, using a personal image of God as a
focal point of concentration may seem unnecessary or even delusional; but it was anciently
discovered that a patent happiness and contentment arises from a lifelong centerdness of the
heart and mind, and the name and face given to the expansive focal point hardly matters to
either organ. For individuals of a devotional temperament or interested in developing the
concentration inherent in devotional practices, even images of God tainted by centuries of
bloodshed can still be used as focal points for worship and inward concentration of the mind.
Once unwrapped of narrow ideas, the image of Krishna, the Buddha, God the Creator and
All-Knowing Father, Jesus Christ, Allah, or the Creator honored by Native cultures in the
Americas is each a potential object of devotional concentration capable of assisting worshippers
in directing their awareness inward and expanding their hearts to include all of humanity. In
focusing heart and mind on the image best equipped to galvanize your devotion, secure your
concentration, and expand your idea of self, you inwardly actualize the ideals sought outwardly
by the creators of God’s many images.
Atheist and nontheist spiritual investigators might argue that an image of God is not necessary
to provide our lives with expansive qualities on which to focus our hearts and minds; artistic,
philosophical, service-oriented, and scientific pursuits can similarly aid in supplying our lives with
concentration and dedication of purpose. When lifelong centerdness is viewed physiologically,
this is abundantly true. But those of a devotional bent are no less capable of reaping the
rewards of inward focus and are in fact in the company of some of history’s great inspirers. On
the path of spiritual inquiry, we can therefore embrace an expansive sense of self by
personalizing an ideal of God that secures our concentration and appeals to our hearts,
establishing an intimate relationship with the ideas of self it conveys and gradually identifying
with it, as described in Technique 2. By giving the heart and mind a point of focus, this practice
naturally awakens feelings of unconditional centeredness, contentment, and peace of mind. In
the end, it helps us embody the large-hearted qualities we project onto God.
TECHNIQUE 2
Developing a Relationship with a Personal God
A relationship with a personal ideal of God, seeded by an intensely focused mind, awakens the
heart to greater depths of intuitive awareness. For extremely intellectual people, this practice
accelerates emotional growth and enhances receptivity. For highly emotional individuals, it
strengthens the intellect, whose capacities are now called upon to convert the energy of reactive
outer-directed emotion into inner-directed devotion. Great creative thinkers and spiritual
exemplars throughout history have used variations on this technique, devotionally surrendering
to a higher calling reflected in the ideals of an inclusive God. No matter what the form our God
takes, this technique curbs the restlessness of the mind and aids us in modeling service to
others and universal love for humanity.
When a person’s concentration on an ideal of God deepens with devotion, it produces
physiological effects. Much as a moving current of electricity generates an electromagnetic field,
nervous energy and attention directed to the dorsal plexus4 through a devotee’s intensity of
concentration can induce magnet-like properties along the spine. According to yogic adepts, the
continuous inward focus on one’s God ideal maintained in immobile, upright, positions yields a
boundless peace intuited along the spine, which has drawn nervous energy from the senses,
heart, and lung activity; the senses retire inward, the heart slows, and the breath stills. It is for
this reason that many adepts felt their love for God literally took their breath away.
To establish a relationship with a personal God, first decide on an image of God that your heart
recognizes as universal, all-pervasive, and profoundly meaningful. (An image containing divisive
elements, while equally capable of focusing the heart and mind, will give rise to a divisive
attitude.) Many people select the image they were taught to identify with as a child, such as the
Heavenly Father, Jesus or Mary, Allah, or a Hindu god or goddess. However, it is just as
possible for a person born Jewish to emulate a modern-day exemplar of selfless service, a
Christian to focus heart and mind on Krishna, a Muslim to idealize the virtues of an inclusive
Christ, a Buddhist to inwardly identify with God the Father of All, and a Hindu to adulate an
infinite Allah. The point is to select the image you most admire not as a religious adherent but as
a human being, whose conditioning and circumstances in life are unqiue. Nor is it necessary to
borrow from historical representations of God; mirroring the virtues of an expansive pantheistic
idea of God that humanitarians and scientists often instinctively embrace, your chosen God can
instead be impersonal love for humainty, the larger self, the light of knowledge, or nature and
the cosmos laid out before you.
Next, stripping away all devotional instructions and scripted prayers normally associated with
your God ideal, begin to contemplate it through proactive wondering. Raise questions and
challenge beliefs with the expansive ideals of your God in mind, all the while surrendering your
predetermined answers, conclusions, and the expected results of your worship. The ensuing
colloquium will spark within your heart and head a new awareness of an unfolding relationship
with others and the world.
To deepen the relationship, engage day after day with your God ideal in mind in penetrating
dialogue with others who similarly tackle the questions of our existence. Perhaps ponder a
recent experience, a book you have read, or a colloquium discussion, posing a few far-reaching
questions it has inspired, then sit in silence contemplating the expansive qualities of your God
and note any challenges that arise. The more you retrain your heart to look only to the
embodiment of your inner God’s ideals for lasting happiness, the sooner you will view your
outer-world circumstances as neutralized, free of gain and loss, bias, and conditioning. Once
your relationship has grown endearingly personal and inspiring, you will naturally want to
emulate your God ideal in every waking moment, minimizing popular distractions in order to do
so. In short, you will be living an inspired life.
Adoration of the inner God eventually becomes effortless, continuous, and intensely satisfying.
You will know you have reached this point when you feel constantly centered within, never
lonely or bored, and aware that your image of God is expanding every day to accommodate
more knowledge. Very soon, because you have endowed your God with cherished virtues and
then concentrated on your God’s containment of them, you will be exemplifying these virtues
while expressing your unique perspective. And in loving a God that is a projection of your own
potential to expand, you will deepen your love for others.
All along, the development of a personal relationship with an infinite God ideal expands the
sense of self. This occurs because in epitomizing your inner universal God, you exercise your
own creative possibilities. As a result, each time your receptivity to this personalized infinite
substance of God comes to expression, inner barriers fall away and your sense of self extends
ever outward to include others in new ways. Eventually you become a walking embodiment of
your God without knowing it, automatically seeing yourself in others while inspiring in them new
outlooks. No longer able to actively identify with a solely outer God, with whom a relationship
would demand artificial rituals and a go-between, you embrace as inviolable this union with your
own expanding awareness—the God within.
Several conditions of my early life compelled me to originally choose to worship God in the form
of my Divine Father: I was raised by Middle-Eastern Jewish parents, I had a strong father figure
to emulate, and I was sent to a Hebrew elementary school. The rabbis provided me with a
“mantra” of sorts—baruch ha’shem, meaning “blessed is the name”—and while mentally
chanting it I intuitively pulled my tongue back to my uvula, which I later learned is a yogic
technique to still the breath and quiet the mind. But by the age eleven, I could no longer resist
exploring my own mind and the range of its imagination. Lost in daydreams for hours, it is fair to
say my God had become the mysteries of my own personhood.
High school was a spiritual wasteland. I gave neither my early childhood God nor my sense of
self any consideration. Though it may seem unlikely, when I finally returned to spiritual
investigation and discovered sense-introversion through breath regulation, I began at the
beginning and again my image of God was a male father figure. Only this time it did not last for
years; I soon realized that the most honest ideal of God for me was existence or reality. Nothing
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